In March 1999, Melodye W. Wehrung was named director of Equal Opportunity Programs and Compliance for the University, charged with preparing and publishing the Annual Affirmative Action Plan and with reporting the progress of hiring and retention of female and minority faculty members. Wehrung left the University in Spring 2002 and her position was terminated.

Administrators have pointed to opportunities to recruit women faculty in its long-term plans for FAS. Kirby said in October that the effort to expand the faculty, which has grown from 636 to 676 professors in the past two years, may allow Harvard to recruit more diverse faculty members.

Also, impending retirements of faculty members, one third of which are currently over the age of 60, will provide open spots for recruitment, according to Kirby.

Gender diversity among Harvard’s junior faculty has also been spotlighted in recent years.

Kirby said in June 2004 that hiring women—particularly to junior faculty positions—was one of his top priorities as dean.

In the past 10 years, the percentage of junior faculty members in the humanities that are women had decreased by almost 15 percent, to 35 from almost 50 percent in the 1990s, according to Kirby’s second annual letter to the Faculty, in 2004.

Women comprise 20 percent of Harvard’s senior faculty and over 30 percent of its junior faculty, according to Kirby’s letter. The breakdown continues with women representing 42 percent of junior Faculty in the social sciences and 17 percent—twice the percentage five years ago—in the natural sciences.

This year, 45 percent of those who have accepted assistant and associate professors are women and 80 percent of tenure-track offers made to women were accepted, Kirby writes in an e-mail.

THE UNIVERSITY RESPONDS

The fallout from Summers’ January comments drew even more attention to concerns of hiring and supporting female faculty.

In February, the University established two task forces, one on female faculty and one on women in sciences, which ultimately pledged $50 million to support female students and faculty in the University’s science departments, as well as creating a senior vice-provost position for faculty development and diversity.

While the inquiries of the task forces were underway, five female professors held a panel in March, sharply critiquing the University’s efforts to address the barriers encountered by female scholars.

“We stand at a moment where we want to change the culture and composition of our universities,” Evelynn M. Hammonds, a professor of African and African American Studies who chairs the Task Force on Women Faculty that Summers appointed in February, told an audience of nearly 200 members.

The professors identified structural problems with the tenure system, calling for more internal tenure promotions and criticizing the University for failing to take into account traditional obligations to family.

According to Kirby’s May letter to junior faculty, the University next year will make $5,000 available to new tenure-track faculty to use towards the expenses of child care.